Imaging devices include photosensors which may form a part of a semiconductor integrated circuit used in a computer or other electronic devices. There are many different types of semiconductor-based imaging devices, including charge coupled devices (CCDs), photodiode arrays, charge injection devices and hybrid focal plane arrays. Because imaging technology provides large arrays of small pixels (high resolution), imaging devices of ever-decreasing size may be useful for recording images where installation space is limited.
Image sensors used with a wide-angle viewing lens (e.g., fish-eye lens) can collect data in a non-linear fashion, perhaps providing a non-rectilinear data representation within a storage block of sensors. The resulting warped image may then be transformed to a rectilinear representation upon transfer of the data to memory. Prior methods to accomplish the transfer include collecting multiple two dimensional sections of the sensor storage blocks and transferring them to memory buffers of equal size. A non-rectilinear conversion formula would then be applied to each buffer to correct the non-linearity and reconstruct the image. This technique places a burden on the available buffer space, and generally lends to the use of external memory. Thus, there is a need to improve the efficiency of memory use, including the management of buffer memory, when images are processed.